Navigating The Future Of Air Travel: Embracing Growth, Innovation, Personalised Experiences

AS global travel recovers to pre-2020 levels, India’s domestic air travel is booming with double-digit growth. A new generation of digitally native travellers is driving this surge, showing a strong preference for domestic and regional journeys, and embracing innovative booking and accommodation methods. This shift is redefining global travel and hospitality. 

The Aviation Industry’s Focus On Expansion 

For decades, as the aviation industry has focused on fleet and network expansion in a bid to scale, sacrificing service experience for commoditisation, Revenue per Available Seat Kilometre has declined. Intense pressure on cash flows and margins in entities with inadequate access to patient capital inevitably compromises the capacity for strategic planning, sustainable long-term growth and consideration for the impact of critical aspects like climate change. 

The Impact Of Disruption In The 21st Century 

The fact that in 2020, the market cap of Zoom exceeded the world’s seven largest airlines is a reflection of the vagaries of market myopia as well as of the expectation of fundamental disruptions in the manner in which human beings engage with each other and the world around us. Disruption was the most influential business idea of the early 21st century, defined by the creation of a new market and value network, typically displacing established market-leading firms and products. Enough is in vogue on the impact of artificial intelligence, but it is virtually an agreed certainty that the nature of its disruption will define the rules of engagement and the boundaries of experience in the time to come.

The Transformative Power Of Travel Experiences 

Each of us are defined by our experiences. And travel has traditionally been the most inspiring experience. For some, it’s about creating life-long memories, or developing a sense of community. For others, it could be about gaining a deeper understanding of the world, or themselves. As long as human beings value experiences, brands that empower individuals to engage meaningfully and curate their experiences will not just survive the test of time, but thrive in ever-accelerating periods of unprecedented disruption. 

Relaunching Air India Express 

Which is why when we relaunched Air India Express in October 2023, we redefined our purpose, to inspire new possibilities and make meaningful connections with unmatched warmth. Our renewed brand proposition invites travellers to ‘Fly As You Are’, empowering individuals to personalise their travel experiences with thoughtfully considered and digitally empowered products, services and interfaces. In the past few months since the launch of the refreshed Air India Express brand, while we have tripled our fleet size, we have also reinforced our brand promise, being the first in Indian aviation to offer additional savings with zero baggage Xpress Lite fares, redefining flexibility with zero change fees on Xpress Flex fares and launching a new class of Xpress Biz fares with business class services to a host of new metro and non-metro destinations across the region. And while we celebrated the rich cultural heritage of Indian art on the vast canvas that is the tail of every new aircraft, we enhanced our services with a diverse selection of regional cuisine as part of our in-flight Gourmair dining experience. At the same time as we proudly accepted accolades and awards for our flight booking and check-in experience, we continue to expand our partner ecosystem to offer seamless connectivity with valued airline partners across the world and enhance our digital platforms to offer ancillary experiences, from self-drive cars to curated holidays. 

The Evolution of Luxury 

“The future is already here”, the phrase coined by science-fiction author and futurist William Gibson, was appended with an epitaph “It’s just not evenly distributed.” An alternative framing of Gibson’s maxim is the Varian Rule, attributed to Google’s chief economist Hal Varian, that “A simple way to forecast the future is to look at what rich people have today; middle-income people will have something equivalent in 10 years, and poor people will have it in an additional decade.” While this holds high the promise of continued growth and expansion for industries like aviation, at the same time, it is perhaps a harkening for the past, and for shared experiences that may drive the antithesis of the Varian Rule and the genesis of sustainable growth – that ironically, yesterday’s normality is today’s luxury.  

Winning Hearts And Minds 

So while we look to differentiate and find what’s right for the next billion, perhaps we need not look too far, but to the heyday when we enabled experiences and memories that resonated for a lifetime. And while we nurture an ecosystem that may be facilitated to drive personalisation like never before, we need to remain conscious of avoiding the android empathy trap, to remain differentiated at every moment of truth through the customer journey and across their lifecycle. Because the question we should be asking is not how to physically move the next billion flyers, but how to emotionally win the hearts and minds of our next billion guests